Bruno Snell

Both his scholarly work and his personal convictions made Snell an advocate of a European identity rooted in the early European humanism that he discerned in ancient Greek intellectual history. This outlook found expression not only in his academic work but also in his reform-minded activities after 1945, through which he helped to rebuild the University of Hamburg’s international connections.

From a historical perspective, Snell regarded national particularities as divergent developments of shared early European structures, but nationalisms as profoundly destructive follies. For him, the common bonds between European states rested on Greek culture and the process of cultural and social development it had set in motion. He also saw this common ground reflected in the wider connections between individual academic disciplines.

By founding Europa-Kolleg Hamburg, Snell sought to create new forms of cooperation through political education and collaboration between different academic disciplines within a studium generale. His aim was to awaken in students the “keen interest in politics” that he considered indispensable to Europe’s growing together. This approach also reflected his holistic understanding of scholarship and society, which had been shaped by Dilthey.

Snell was also aware that the creation of a united Europe would depend largely on the new elites emerging from European universities after the war:

“Developments in recent years have given rise to problems that universities have not yet addressed. One such problem is the form that European unification should take. What is certain, however, is that our students must be prepared to work in international organisations and public authorities.” (1954)

The Europa-Kolleg’s teaching programme was open to students from all faculties and was designed to provide knowledge of contemporary history, intellectual and cultural history, law and economics. It also included interdisciplinary lecture series on broad themes, political forums with guests from politics, business and academia as well as working groups devoted to specific subjects.

Here, Snell’s call for a reorientation of both university education and scholarship as a whole became tangible. The positivist specialist mindset, which had always prided itself on being apolitical, had served the Nazi regime unconditionally and uncritically. Snell’s bitter experience was

“that a considerable proportion of German academics had been willing to serve the National Socialist regime in 1933. One of the causes lay in the German intelligentsia’s disdainful detachment from political life and in the resulting superficial political education or ignorance.”
— Bruno Snell, speech delivered in Thessaloniki, 1965

Through the establishment of Europa-Kolleg Hamburg, Snell sought to bridge the divide he perceived between the university and wider social and political developments. In his view, these developments had to lead towards a historically informed bringing together of Europe’s political and cultural diversity and ultimately towards a united Europe:

“Much of what is already a European reality today has yet to enter people’s consciousness and society, and there is a danger that our thinking will lag behind the facts.”

Working closely with the University of Hamburg and its institutions in cultural history, law and economics, Europa-Kolleg Hamburg became an example of the interaction between theory and practice to which Snell referred in his rectorial address of 14 November 1951. For Snell, the universal – which even the specialist’s intensive research “can and must” attain – could only be grasped through an understanding of theory that, in the Platonic sense, also encompassed “a substantial element of practice”. For him, this practical dimension consisted above all in political engagement:

“A true scholar must also possess a keen understanding of politics.”